Author: Jason Goroncy

Encouragement for preachers …
For those called to bear witness to the Word of God, and/or who might be preparing sermons for this Sunday, and/or who just haven’t happened to get around to visiting the Musée du Louvre lately, here’s some encouragement from the left panel of the Braque triptych by Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400–1464):
‘John the Baptist’, oil on panel (41×34 cm) — ca. 1450
The words read ‘Ecce Agnus Dei qui tollit peccata mundi.’ (Behold the Lamb of God that will take away the sins of the world.) If you’re curious, centre panel and right panel here.

The state of philosophy

Over here, Brian Leiter lists a series of responses to the question, ‘As a profession, is philosophy in a better or worse state than it was in 1997?’ Among the responses is Alasdair MacIntyre’s:

If the philosophy published between 1907 and 1967 were to vanish without a trace, it would be an intellectual catastrophe.  If the philosophy published between 1967 and 1997 were to vanish without trace, it would be a very serious loss.  If the philosophy published between 1997 and 2007 were to vanish similarly, it would matter a little, but not that much.

Because I think Forsyth hit a nail on the head when he urged that we ‘think in centuries’, wouldn’t a better question be, ‘As a profession, is philosophy in a better or worse state than it was in 1897?’, or for us now, ‘in 1908’?

I don’t read a lot of contemporary philosophy so I can’t really offer much by way of opinion (though I do have my hunches) but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

On a related track, Bertrand Russell reckons that ‘The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it’. … mmm seems too simple to be true …

‘Protestant Nonconformity in the Twentieth Century’: A Review

Alan P. F. Sell and Anthony R. Cross (eds.), Protestant Nonconformity in the Twentieth Century (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2003). x + 398 pages. ISBN: 978 1 84227 221 3. Review copy courtesy of Paternoster/Authentic Books.

This book, edited by Alan Sell and Anthony Cross, is another worthy addition to what is an excellent series of Studies in Christian History and Thought, a series comprising monographs, revised dissertations, and collections of papers which explore the church’s witness through history. The series includes some important contributions to scholarship, among which is David Wright’s Infant Baptism In Historical Perspective, Byung Ho Moon’s Christ the Mediator of the Law: Calvin’s Christological Understanding of the Law as the Rule of Living and Life-giving, and David Bebbington’s brilliant 1998 Didsbury Lectures, Holiness In Nineteenth-Century England.

Protestant Nonconformity in the Twentieth Century is a collection of papers presented at the second conference of The Association of Denominational Historical Societies and Cognate Libraries, held at Westhill College, Birmingham, in July 2000. The result is twelve papers from scholars representing a number of Nonconformist traditions which invite reflection on Nonconformist contributions to biblical studies, theology, worship, evangelism, spirituality, and ecumenism during the twentieth century.

Sell’s own contribution, ‘The Theological Contribution of Protestant Nonconformists in the Twentieth Century: Some Soundings’, is an embryonic version of his 2006 Didsbury Lectures, published as Nonconformist Theology in the Twentieth Century and reviewed here (I wish I’d noticed this before I was near the end of the chapter, although it was great to read over this material again). He again reminds us that Nonconformists are nothing if not diverse. Employing Dale’s summary on the question of the final fate of the impenitent, Sell writes:

The twentieth century provided Nonconformist theologians with both inner-family and external stimuli to theological endeavour. As the century opened the Wesleyans were earnestly debating the question of eternal life. The particular question at issue was the final fate of the impenitent. Discussion of this topic had been rumbling on at least since the eighteenth century, and R.W. Dale had specified the options in 1877. There are, he said, those who cannot make up their minds on the subject: ‘They cannot warn men against eternal condemnation, because they are not sure that any man will be eternally condemned.’ There are those who hold that the impenitent are to be condemned to suffering, whilst hoping that ‘there may be some transcendent manifestation of the Divine grace in reserve, of which as yet we have no hint.’ There are those who believe that the Christ who came to seek and to save the lost will persist in this effort even though, because of the invincibility of human freedom, it cannot be affirmed that all will in fact be saved. There are those who believe that God’s love cannot finally be thwarted, and hence all will finally be saved; those who hold that the impenitent will nevertheless enjoy an eternal life on a lower plane than the saved; and those who deny that the impenitent can finally be restored. (p. 36)

While all the studies are certainly erudite and deserving of comment, I wish here to identify a few for special mention. Norman Wallwork’s piece, ‘Developments in Liturgy and Worship in Twentieth-Century Protestant Nonconformity’ is a helpful survey of the general issues and particular contributions that concern Nonconformist worship. The contributions of Unitarians, Free Catholics, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, the United Reformed Church, Congregational Federation, Baptists and are all attended too with care, and the Quakers, Methodists, Independent Methodists and Salvation Army are also considered. Wallwork writes:

Of all the Free Churches the Unitarians were the most given to textual revision of the Book of Common Prayer [no surprises here], but their demise included their destruction of the Trinitarian theology which undergirded the Anglican tradition. However, Martineau’s love of good liturgical language passed over into all the Free Churches not least into Congregationalism. The Free Church Catholic and ritualistic revival under Lloyd Thomas and Orchard was short-lived, but the prayers in Orchard’s Divine Service furnished other service books for over fifty years. The movement for liturgical renewal which hit the Free Churches in the 1960’s and created the Joint Liturgical Group produced some fine liturgical texts and created new service books centred on classical eucharistic texts, an increase in the frequency of communion, a shift to morning all-age celebrations, and a much greater emphasis on the Christian year. In the end, only the Methodists and the United Reformed Church would place a eucharistic rite in the hands of their congregations. In all the traditions worship leaders and preachers turned to a variety of available resources, often without the approval of any recognizable magisterium. The memory of revival songs from the Sankey and Moody era helped to secure a place for lively and spontaneous worship revived among the Free Churches, as in Anglicanism, by a new wave of charismatic prayer and praise and the new tradition of heavy ‘biblical teaching’ in Sunday worship. This movement had its strongest support among the Baptists and many of the original ‘Plymouth’ Brethren congregations who now renamed themselves ‘Evangelical Churches’. The influence of the High Genevan school of the English Reformed tradition was still seen in the liturgical texts of the United Reformed Church but much of its worship was dominated by the twin calls to inclusive all-age worship and to be relevant and engaged in issues of local and international justice. Several babies went out with the bath water. (pp. 130-1)

Other essays I particularly valued were David Bebbington’s, ‘Evangelism and Spirituality in Twentieth-Century Protestant Nonconformity’, and ‘Protestant Nonconformist Attitudes towards the First World War’, by Alan Ruston. Ruston, who is editor of the Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, surveys how WWI witnessed Nonconformist churches becoming increasingly part of the establishment, particularly in attitude. They became, he writes, ‘an integral element within the political machine in almost the same terms as the established church. But flying into the sun in this way burnt their wings and like Icarus they fell to the sea. They did not drown like Icarus but the weakness engendered by the war remained with them for the rest of the century’ (p. 240). Ruston’s contribution to this volume is a powerful reminder of how voluntaryist assumptions about church, state and society inform Nonconformist contributions to religious, social and political life.

Those who identify themselves with the Nonconformist family, and those with an interest in (particularly early) Twentieth Century theology and history would be well served by reading this book.

‘The Wondrous Cross: Atonement and Penal Substitution in the Bible and History’: A Review

Holmes - Wondrous CrossStephen R. Holmes, The Wondrous Cross: Atonement and Penal Substitution in the Bible and History (London: Paternoster, 2007). xii + 130 pages. ISBN: 978 1 84227541 2. Review copy courtesy of Paternoster/Authentic Books.

It seems that not too many theologians feel just as comfortable writing about Isaiah and Jonah as they do Anselm, Aquinas, Doctor Who, Kierkegaard, Coleridge and Matt Redman. But then Steve Holmes is a particularly gifted theologian.

Holmes’ latest book, The Wondrous Cross: Atonement and Penal Substitution in the Bible and History, has one central thesis: that to speak about the cross – which we must – in a way that is faithful to the biblical witness requires harnessing a broad range of metaphors that the Bible and the best of the tradition employs to bear witness to the reality of what God has done in Christ. Those already conversant with Colin Gunton’s brilliant The Actuality of Atonement: A Study of Metaphor, Rationality and the Christian Tradition will already be acquainted with where Steve is coming from, and perhaps where he is going.

He begins by reminding us that ‘Christians have always been more concerned to stand under the Cross than to understand it’ (p. 1), before turning in Chapter Two to where ‘Christian theology, if it to be adequately Christian, must always begin and end: with the inspired Scriptures’ (p. 14). In just 14 pages, Holmes introduces his readers to the place and use of typology in biblical literature, and then surveys the key OT material, ‘pictures’ that inform our theology of atonement: principally sacrifice, but also justice, servanthood, wholeness, healing, and representation.

In Chapter Three, Holmes attends to the NT metaphors of atonement: namely sacrifice, victory, ransom, healing and salvation, reconciliation, revelation, new covenant, and justification. He reminds us afresh that ‘the best way to think about the cross is to use many, complementary, models or stories of salvation that hint at and point towards the indescribable truth at the heart of the matter. It seems clear that this is what the New Testament writers did’ (p. 41). Some readers may expect more from these two chapters, but I think given the nature of the book and its intended audience what Holmes gives us is adequate.

In the following two chapters – Four and Five – Holmes sketches the tradition. Gregory of Nazianzus, Augustine, John of Damascus, Anselm, Abelard, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Luther, Calvin, Anabaptists and Anglicans, early Evangelicals, nineteenth-century liberals and twentieth-century neo-orthodox theologians, Aulén and liberation theology are all perused. Holmes argues – against Jeffery, Ovey and Sach in Pierced for Our Transgressions: Rediscovering the Glory of Penal Substitution, who spill not a little ink trying to prove (force?) otherwise – that the claim that penal substitutionary atonement is found in the fathers is misplaced and that he can find only ‘one isolated passage in Gregory the Great, but nothing else’ (p. 57), the focus there being principally on ransom and sacrifice motifs. This is not a problem however for Holmes: ‘If we understand the various pictures of the atonement to be complementary and (only) partial attempts to grab hold of a bigger truth, as I am suggesting we do, then the history of the early and medieval church will not seem surprising to us’ (p. 58).

The first full account of the doctrine comes, Holmes suggests, with Calvin. Had he wanted to, Holmes could have elicited support here from some negative (and older) critiques of the doctrine from church historians who claim that there is a scarcity of the doctrine pre-Reformation. See, for example, Laurence William Grensted, A Short History of the Doctrine of the Atonement (Manchester/London: Manchester University Press/Longmans, Green & Co., 1920), 191, and James Franklin Bethune Baker, An Introduction to the Early History of Christian Doctrine to the Time of Chalcedon (London: Methuen & Co., 1933), 352. Whether or not Holmes is correct here (and I’m not suggesting that he isn’t) is of little significance for his argument however.

Summarising, Holmes writes:

‘Christian theologians and preachers have told many, many ‘stories of salvation’. They have drawn pictures of kings being ransomed and slaves being freed and the sick being healed and guilty prisoners being declared innocent, of human nature being transformed and evil powers being defeated and people being inspired to a new life. The stories have changed through time because culture has changed through time, and different stories communicate the unchanging reality of the gospel to different cultures. At the time of the Reformation, penal substitution became a common and successful way of talking about the cross. Despite some critics, this remained the case for several centuries. Over the past two hundred years, however, several significant criticisms have been raised. Any account of penal substitution today needs to answer three questions:

1. How are all the different ‘stories of salvation’ related?

2. How did penal substitution ever thrive as an idea in early modern culture (i.e. sixteenth to eighteenth centuries)?

3. What, if anything, has changed?’ (pp. 72-3)

With this these questions, the Lecturer in theology at the University of St Andrews turns in the remaining chapters to explore the ‘what do we do with all these different pictures and stories’? question. ‘How do we decide between them which is right and which is wrong? Indeed do we have to decide between them?’ (pp. 74-5). He proceeds to properly note that ‘every story of salvation works by picturing what Christ did on the cross in terms of one particular facet of human experience, whether it be religious (sacrifice), legal (penal), or whatever. If we want to say that one or another of these theories is just plain right, then we have to say that the atonement, what Christ did for us to save us, really is just one example of the some more general part of human life. There are lots of sacrifices in the world, and the death of Jesus is one more. Perhaps more powerful, more lasting, than any of the others, but still, just a sacrifice amongst sacrifices. Or Jesus is one amongst a number of inspiring moral examples that we may find. Again, perhaps the most inspiring, but still, an example of some more general aspect of human life’ (p. 77).

One of the commendable things about this book is Holmes’ concern that the church might be able to communicate the truth to which the doctrine of penal substitution is attempting to proffer to contemporary society: ‘We need stories of salvation that are no decomposed, but that make sense to our culture’ (p. 103). He has most to say about this in the final chapters and in the Appendix (wherein he responds specifically to the challenges of Green, Baker, Chalke and Mann’s theses), but one does not need to wait until the end of the book to get to the ‘practical bits’, for this Baptist pastor has his eye on the world from Page 1. An example:

‘Our account of the atonement must make some sort of sense in whatever modern culture we find ourselves in. The pictures we draw must use symbols and images that people will recognise; the stories we tell must make sense. For academic theologians this is not quite so important: they can study the culture of Anselm’s day, and so work out how his theory made sense. But for preachers and evangelists – and that means every Christian – it is vital. When announcing the saving death of Jesus to people in ringing tones from a pulpit, or explaining it in hesitant conversation over a coffee, we need to be able to tell stories of salvation that will communicate, that will connect with the people we are talking to.

This might seem a very tall order, but if we accept the need for – and legitimacy of – many metaphors, we do not need to find one theory, one picture, one story, that will meet all these conditions. Instead, we can tell many stories, which between them build up into a cohesive, coherent picture. Some of them will underplay, or miss completely, this or that aspect of the biblical witness; some will be easy to grasp in our culture, others difficult and will require additional explanation. But between them all, we will build up a composite picture of all that Jesus has done, a picture that will begin – but probably only begin – to be adequate to explain the wondrous cross.

The question, then, that I want to put with regard to penal substitution as a way of picturing the atonement is not: ‘Does it answer everything?’ but rather: ‘Does it illuminate some things?’ Does it help, alongside other stories, to build up a picture of the cross? Of course it has weaknesses – every metaphor does – but do its strengths counterbalance its weaknesses? Is there some aspect of the work of Jesus that, in our particular culture, it enables us to speak meaningfully of, some aspect that is missed by most or all of the other things we could say or stories we could tell?

If the answer to these questions is ‘yes’, then penal substitution may – and must – remain as one of our stories of salvation, balanced by others of course, but an important part nonetheless of our witness to the cross’ (pp. 85-6).

I confess that I am weary of the use (and overuse) of unqualified analogy or metaphor in any christological discussion because, as with the resurrection, we are dealing with something, or Someone, new – a reality which fundamentally challenges all we know, and think we know, about the whole order of the possible. This does not mean, however, that I think there is no place for metaphor. I concur with Gunton’s The Actuality of the Atonement that we must not only speak about the work of Christ but that to do so necessarily means harnessing a broad range of metaphors – both biblical and extra-biblical – with the conviction that no one group of metaphors can exhaust the atonement’s meaning. Therefore, warfare, redemption, judicial and sacrificial dialects are all valid (most often, to be sure, at different times and in different places) – as are dialects of poetry and the social and hard sciences – with the conviction that although no one group of metaphors can exhaust the atonement’s meaning, it is through metaphor that the church has been able to say anything at all about the cross. We ought not be concerned that no one metaphor can translate the reality of the atonement. Christ did not die for a metaphor. Moreover, the dominance of any one metaphor risks distorting the reality which, like conversion itself, carries a totality in it, an eternal crisis, to which nothing in the world is comparable and all metaphor inadequate. To employ an analogy: to stress any metaphors of the atonement at the expense – or even worse, at the exclusion – of others is akin to silencing all the members of the orchestra except the clarinets. Now I’ve nothing against the clarinet (I play one) but it’s not what the score before the orchestra requires. And anyway, 90 minutes of clarinet with nothing else is not even what the clarinetists want.

Holmes recognises the tendency within some evangelical camps to privilege penal substitutionary accounts of the atonement over others; a move, he argues, which distorts the full word of the cross. Instead, he cogently outlines why preachers and theologians – that is, all of us – need all the stories if we are even to begin to understand the many truths of what God was doing in Christ crucified. Penal substitution is one of these stories. If this story has been told shockingly and distortedly in the past – and it has, pitting the Father against the Son, for example – then rather than abandon the story we need to find ways of telling it better, that is, ways that are more faithful to the Scriptures and which also account for the fact that this story needs to be told alongside others.

In the final chapter Holmes suggests that the message of penal substitution remains an important one to teach us about God’s love, about forgiveness and about justice – for both victims and perpetrators. On this latter, and rehearsing some things he has written about more fully elsewhere (see Stephen R. Holmes, ‘Can Punishment Bring Peace? Penal Substitution Revisited’, Scottish Journal of Theology 58 (2005): 104-123), Holmes writes:

‘Penal substitution will, of course, teach us something about justice and guilt. It will teach us first that justice cannot and will not ever be set aside. Not that there can never be forgiveness – of course not – the point of the story is precisely that there can be, and is: while crimes cannot be forgotten, yet at the same time they must also be forgiven. Cases of child abuse, where the abuser has used shaming mechanisms so successfully that none of his victims ever speak; cases of corruption, where the politician has cynically sold favours and hidden her misdeeds well enough never to be discovered; cases of war crimes, where the military officer has callously committed certain deeds, feeling secure in the knowledge that they will not come to light: these are the types of cases and situations where penal substitution becomes an important story to tell.

For the victims in such situations, the story of penal substitution holds the promise that there is justice in this world, even for the worst crimes, or the best-hidden atrocities …

For the perpetrators in these situations, the story of penal substitution holds out the invitation to stop trying to escape their crimes by their own efforts, and to find, if they dare to face up with honesty and repentance to what they have done, full and free forgiveness in Christ’ (p. 119).

In this short book, Dr Holmes doesn’t answer every question we might have about penal substitution though he does give us enough of an indication of where he might want to suggest the answer might lay. But I have said enough. So, why do I like this book? Here’s four reasons:

  1. I agree with the basic thesis;
  2. It models a good way of doing theology: start with exegesis of Scripture, and then work through the tradition with an eye on the church and the world;
  3. Because it’s easy to read;
  4. Because it’s the kind of book I can pass onto folk at church who are confused about what the bible (and the tradition) wants to say about the cross, and/or who are needing a guide through the current debates on penal substitution. [Unfortunately, not too many are prepared to read Gunton’s The Actuality of Atonement]. As a pastor, I can place this book into people’s hands confident that their love for Christ and praise for his work on their behalf will be matured and deepened.

It is all too rare to find a book written with the educated lay reader in mind by one who so properly has both eyes on the biblical witness, is so consciously aware of the tradition of which the theme is a part, and who is informed by the pastoral and missional implications of the discussion, and who also seeks to say something constructive to those on both sides of a contemporary debate. Holmes’ book does all this admirably.

First Things is out: ‘Who Can Be Saved?’

The February 2008 edition of First Things is out and includes, among other articles, a piece by Richard John Neuhaus on Saved in Hope: Benedict’s Second Encyclical and a provocative piece by Avery Cardinal Dulles in which he explores the question, Who Can Be Saved?. Dulles writes:

The New Testament is almost silent about the eternal fate of those to whom the gospel has not been preached. It seems apparent that those who became believers did not think they had been on the road to salvation before they heard the gospel.

…

In several important texts, Vatican II took up the question of the salvation of non-Christians. Although they were related to the Church in various ways, they were not incorporated in her. God’s universal salvific will, it taught, means that he gives non-Christians, including even atheists, sufficient help to be saved. Whoever sincerely seeks God and, with his grace, follows the dictates of conscience is on the path to salvation. The Holy Spirit, in a manner known only to God, makes it possible for each and every person to be associated with the Paschal mystery. “God, in ways known to himself, can lead those inculpably ignorant of the gospel to that faith without which it is impossible to please him.” The council did not indicate whether it is necessary for salvation to come to explicit Christian faith before death, but the texts give the impression that implicit faith may suffice.

Vatican II left open the question whether non-Christian religions contain revelation and are means that can lead their adherents to salvation. It did say, however, that other religions contain elements of truth and goodness, that they reflect rays of the truth that enlightens all men, and that they can serve as preparations for the gospel. Christian missionary activity serves to heal, ennoble, and perfect the seeds of truth and goodness that God has sown among non-Christian peoples, to the glory of God and the spiritual benefit of those evangelized.

…

The universal evidences of the divine, under the leading of grace, can give rise to a rudimentary faith that leans forward in hope and expectation to further manifestations of God’s merciful love and of his guidance for our lives. By welcoming the signs already given and placing their hope in God’s redeeming love, persons who have not heard the tidings of the gospel may nevertheless be on the road to salvation. If they are faithful to the grace given them, they may have good hope of receiving the truth and blessedness for which they yearn.

…

Who, then, can be saved? Catholics can be saved if they believe the Word of God as taught by the Church and if they obey the commandments. Other Christians can be saved if they submit their lives to Christ and join the community where they think he wills to be found. Jews can be saved if they look forward in hope to the Messiah and try to ascertain whether God’s promise has been fulfilled. Adherents of other religions can be saved if, with the help of grace, they sincerely seek God and strive to do his will. Even atheists can be saved if they worship God under some other name and place their lives at the service of truth and justice. God’s saving grace, channeled through Christ the one Mediator, leaves no one unassisted. But that same grace brings obligations to all who receive it. They must not receive the grace of God in vain. Much will be demanded of those to whom much is given.

Read Dulles’ full article here.

Scott Cairns, ‘Into Hell and Out Again’

Scott Cairns once quipped, ‘I’m seeking to articulate a faith that isn’t eclipsed by a meager expression of that faith’. This, I’m sure, is precisely one the reasons his poems summon us; that this one who is so adept at playing games with poetry itself, is able also to put away his toys and allow speech – unveiling – to happen … to poet and reader, to all who have ears to hear. Here’s his poem ‘Into Hell and Out Again’:

In this Byzantine-inflected icon
of the Resurrection, the murdered Christ
is still in Hell, the chief issue being

that this Resurrection is of our agéd
parents and all their poor relations. We
find Him as we might expect, radiant

in spotless white, standing straight, but leaning
back against the weight of lifting them. Long
tradition has Him standing upon two

crossed boards—the very gates of Hell—and He,
by standing thus, has undone Death by Death,
we say, and saying nearly apprehend.

This all—the lifting of the dead, the death
of Death, His stretching here between two realms—
looks like real work, necessary, not pleasant

but almost matter-of-factly undertaken.
We witness here a little sheepishness
which death has taught both Mom and Dad; they reach

Christ’s proffered hands and everything about
their affect speaks centuries of drowning
in that abysmal crypt. Are they quite awake?

Odd—motionless as they must be in our
tableau outside of Time, we almost see
their hurry. And isn’t that their shame

which falls away? They have yet to enter bliss,
but they rise up, eager and a little shocked
to find their bodies capable of this.

– Scott Cairns, ‘Into Hell and Out Again’, Philokalia: new and selected poems, p. 163.

Baudrillard-Jones on Forsyth

Gareth Baudrillard-Jones writes on Forsyth:

Wandering in a second-hand bookshop the other day (won’t say it was in a state of ancient disrepair, but the graffiti in the rest room read, variously, ‘Squeaky Fromme is Innocent’, `Rousas Rushdoony is my Homeboy’ and `Tex Ritter Taught Me to Yodel’) I caught sight of an old classic: P T Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind. This is nearly a hundred years old but a classic of its kind (one of the things the pupils of Ritschl did well was write on preaching…). Any pastor out there who has lost sight of the romance and power of the preached word should sell all his has to get a copy of this … Don’t forget – it was reading PTF’s The Cruciality of the Cross which changed Martyn Lloyd Jones from a preacher of regeneration to a preacher of Christ.

HT: Reformation 21

Steve Holmes evaluates McCormack’s TF Torrance Lectures

After posting his four reflections, Steve Holmes (who is obviously not lecturing this week and so has more time to devote to blogdom) now stands back and asks, ‘How to evaluate McCormack’s novel account of kenosis?’ He writes:

On trinity: ‘… it seems to me that [McCormack’s] basic position is securely orthodox, certainly much more so than all of the recent theology that, misled by the word ‘Person’, insists on finding three instances of many or most divine properties (will; operation; knowledge; …) within the Godhead.’

On creation: ‘If there is a criticism which is in danger of sticking, I think it is to do with creation.’

On kenosis: ‘McCormack’s account of kenosis is, or at least could easily be rendered, orthodox. Is it, however, compelling? Alongside the constructive work in these lectures was a line of critique of classical Christology which established the need for the fresh construction. Simply and bluntly, I found this critique unconvincing. It was, in essence, Herrmann’s critique of metaphysics: the problem with Christology prior to Schleiermacher was its investment in certain metaphysical commitments that were alien to the gospel. This led to irreconcilable tensions, in patristic Christology, which only Cyril’s (supposed) Origenism allowed him to escape, and throughout the tradition into the nineteenth century, with the incompatibility of the anhypostasia and dithelitism coming to the fore. It is these metaphysical commitments, giving rise to the tensions they do, that drive the need for a revisionist Christology … I don’t feel the pressure that is driving Bruce.’

Full post here.

Bruce McCormack’s TF Torrance Lectures – Lecture 4

Steve Holmes has posted his fourth reflection of McCormack’s recent TF Torrance lectures at St Andrews. He writes of Bruce’s proposal:

Let me approach it like this: it is a standard thesis of classical theology that God’s being is His act; further, God’s act is single, and simple. This is, of course, already a problem, at least if one wants to continue to maintain that God’s existence is independent of the created order: St Thomas devotes considerable ingenuity to explaining how God’s act of creation can happen without any change in God (1a q.45 arts 2 &3). When Barth brings the doctrine of election into the doctrine of God (it is treated in the second part-volume of vol. II, not the first of vol. III), and links election closely to incarnation, the problem becomes acute. However, the gains of Barth’s novel doctrine of election are sufficiently obvious that almost every serious (Protestant) theological proposal of the second half of the twentieth century chose to face the problems, rather than lose the gains.

In general, and in one way or another, the problems were eliminated in the later twentieth century by the simple expedient of losing the axiom of impassibility, properly understood: if God’s life is allowed to be dependent on creation, there is no problem. The single greatest merit of Bruce’s proposal, it seems to me, is that he is not prepared to play this game. Instead, he develops a novel account of kenosis.

Read the full post here. I have linked to all of Steve’s notes here, and I hope to post my notes from these lectures sometime soon.

Also, around the traps …

  • Locke and Mill both believed in being open to the other side’s ideas. Read here.
  • Andy and Jim (part 1; part 2) have both posted reviews on Rob Warner’s, Re-inventing English Evangelicalism 1966-2001: A Theological and Sociological Study
  • Barry Smith of Birkbeck College London gives a lucid account of Wittgenstein’s conception of Philosophy in this MP3.
  • Stanley Fish asks, ‘Will the humanities save us?’. He concludes:

Teachers of literature and philosophy are competent in a subject, not in a ministry. It is not the business of the humanities to save us, no more than it is their business to bring revenue to a state or a university. What then do they do? They don’t do anything, if by “do” is meant bring about effects in the world. And if they don’t bring about effects in the world they cannot be justified except in relation to the pleasure they give to those who enjoy them.

    To the question “of what use are the humanities?”, the only honest answer is none whatsoever. And it is an answer that brings honor to its subject. Justification, after all, confers value on an activity from a perspective outside its performance. An activity that cannot be justified is an activity that refuses to regard itself as instrumental to some larger good. The humanities are their own good. There is nothing more to say, and anything that is said … diminishes the object of its supposed praise.

    Assuming a common grammar

    Clearly, the same word can mean different things to different groups. Thanks to Google, I was reminded again of this today and of our need as theologians to be aware of the pitfalls of assuming a common grammar. According to the Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca, ‘Universalism is a religious belief that allows for the existence of truth in a multitude of places’.

    [If you’re curious to know how I ended up on the Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca site, it was the result of trying to find out a little bit more about a meeting held in 1888 at Albert Hall, Nottingham, to discuss Congregationalism and the Irish Question. The ‘Church’ ‘not only upholds the ‘Five Points of Wiccan Belief‘ (sound familiar?), but also shares the same acronym as the Congregational Union of England and Wales. So, of course …]

    PT Forsyth: Preaching the Centrality of the Cross

    Mark Johnson has written a delightful piece on PT Forsyth: Preaching the Centrality of the Cross. It is an adaptation from his PhD Dissertation, ‘Christological Preaching for the Post-Modern Era’ (The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1994). Because of a focus on this blog regarding Forsyth and his work, I reproduce it here:

    Peter Taylor Forsyth was born May 12, 1848 in Aberdeen, Scotland. The son of a postal worker and a maid, he was raised as a member of the Black-friars Street Congregational Church. His family was devout, if not affluent. In spite of his family’s modest means, he was able to attend the university where he achieved an enviable reputation as a student.

    In young adulthood, Forsyth was greatly influenced by the thought and writings of both F. D. Maurice and Albrecht Ritschl.[1] He would have opportunity to study under Ritschl for a term at Gottingen. In his early ministry, he gained notoriety for his liberal theological views and his “‘loud’ dress and unpredictable pulpit utterances.”[2]After serving in several pastorates, he was named principal of Hackney College in London in 1901, a position that allowed time for extensive writing. At least part of the reason for this move was the belief that the academic lifestyle would place less strenuous demands on his frail health than the pastorate.

    I first became acquainted with Forsyth reviewing Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind during my first semester in Ph.D. studies. I delved deeper into Forsyth’s thought when writing a dissertation dealing with preaching Christ in the Postmodern era. The one contribution that sticks out above all others is his insistence that one remains relevant to his times by keeping his focus on the unchanging Christ. He urged preachers to “preach to their age without preaching their age.”In Christology he sides neither with those who quested after a historical Jesus nor with the idealists who heavily emphasized the divinity of Christ. Neither adequately expressed Christ’s dual nature as both God and Man.[3] In Forsyth’s earlier writings, he placed Christ at the center of his theology. In his later development, he sees Christ’s ministry on the cross as the central focus for theology.[4]

    Perhaps it is this focus on the person and work of Christ that causes him to write with a warmth of devotion and piety, causing one writer to say in appreciation of his writings, “To read these lines is to be challenged to think theologically, but it is also to be brought into a reflective and devotional mood.”[5] That devotional style, as well as some insight into Forsyth’s reaction to modernity, can be seen in the following words of testimony:

    There was a time when I was interested in the first degree with purely scientific criticism …. It also pleased God by the revelation of His holiness and grace, which the great theologians taught me to find in the Bible, to bring home to me my sin in a way that submerged all the school questions in weight, urgency, and poignancy. I was turned from a Christian to a believer, from a lover of love to an object of grace. And so, whereas I first thought that what the Churches needed was enlightened instruction and liberal theology, I came to be sure that what they needed was evangelization.[6]

    Forsyth wrote sixteen books, five of which deal explicitly with Christ or christology – The Person and Place of Jesus Christ, The Cruciality of the Cross, Christ on Parnassus, The Holy Father and the Living Christ and The Work of Christ.[7]

    His 1907 Beecher lectures at Yale University have been preserved in book form as Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind. He speaks of finding his true and magnetic north in Christ and dedicates the book, “Unto him who loved me and gave himself for me.” Like most of his other works, Positive Preaching was a series of lectures which were compiled into book form. Subsequently, Forsyth lays out no major systematization of his thought. Part of this lacking is attributed to Forsyth’s reluctance to over-simplify the complex. Similarly, his writing is often difficult to understand. This is perhaps by design so as not to state the complex too simply.[8]

    On Preaching
    Forsyth’s most significant contribution to the field of homiletics came in 1907 with his Beecher lectures at Yale. In them, he coined many phrases which are still quoted in homiletics classrooms and in preaching conferences today. He defined preaching as the “organized hallelujah of the believing community,” and he maintained, “With preaching Christianity stands or falls because it is the declaration of a gospel…. It is the Gospel prolonging and declaring itself.”[9] Maintaining that the Bible is the “greatest sermon in the world,” he urged preachers to preach expository sermons using long passages of Scripture.

    Forsyth’s theological understanding of the preaching event centers in his understanding of kerygma as the Spirit of the risen Christ revealing the meaning of His death and resurrection to the apostles whose writings are then understood as revelation.[10] Such an understanding runs counter to the liberal schools of thought of his day which maintained that the apostles perverted the simple message of Jesus into a system of doctrines which he never intended.[11] According to Forsyth, the Bible should not be reduced to a casebook of sterile doctrines and regulations. Instead, one should listen for the voice of Christ Himself preaching through scripture.

    As Christ’s work of redemption is the center of faith, the center of the kerygma is the cross. Such an understanding of revelation means that the preacher stands more in the tradition of the Hebrew prophet bringing a revelation from God, than that of the Greek orator bringing inspiration. If one hears the voice of Christ speaking through scripture, it stands to reason that in the preaching act, it is Christ’s voice which should ultimately be heard as well.[12]

    The point of Forsyth’s kerygmatic emphasis on biblical preaching is that a distinction should be made between the gospel and the Bible. He asserts “Biblical preaching preaches the gospel and uses the Bible, it does not preach the Bible and use the Gospel.”[13] He argues that the Bible itself is the preaching of Christ. He says:

    The New Testament (the Gospels even), is a direct transcript, not of Christ, but of the preaching about Christ, or the effect produced by Christ on the first generation, a transcript of the faith that worshipped Him. It is a direct record not of Christ’s biography but of Christ’s Gospel, that is to say of Christ neither as delineated, nor as reconstructed, nor as analyzed but as preached…. The stories told are but a trifling selection, not chosen to cast light on the motives of a deep and complex character, but selected entirely from a single point of view– that of the crucified, risen, exalted, preached Saviour.[14]

    Robert McAfee Brown paraphrases Forsyth by saying,” Christ did not “preach the Gospel”; he became a gospel to preach. (emphasis Brown’s)[15]

    Forsyth believed that preachers should preach to their age without merely preaching the age. Preaching can keep its contemporariness by centering on God’s eternal act on the cross. In keeping the cross central, Christ works through the preacher to develop the faith of those who are already Christian. Forsyth lamented that there are many preachers who “scheme how to cover and capture the world’s mind rather than to develop that of the Church; how to commend Christ to those who are not Christian [more] than how to enrich Him for those that are.”[16]

    If Forsyth views the cross of Christ as the final seat of authority, and uses the cross as the hermeneutical norm for his theology, that authority ought to be manifest through both the person and the proclamation of the preacher.[17] It is Forsyth’s contention that, “It is authority that the world chiefly needs and the preaching of the hour lacks – an authoritative Gospel in a humble personality.”[18] He decries the sentimentality with which the modern mindset tended to view the Bible and religion. He blames much of this sentimentality upon “The loss of a real positive authority, the loss of an objective grasp of the world’s moral crisis in the Christian Centre of the Cross.”[19] In sentimentalizing the cross, the Bible, and the atonement, the focus has shifted from God to humanity.

    At the same time the church was sentimentalizing its religion, according to Forsyth, it ceded its authority to science. He says:

    When a modern mind asks us for help to a footing we still turn to men of science, to men often who evidently never in their lives read a theological classic or an authority on moral philosophy, who indeed might scout the idea, and we ask them to assure the inquirer, with a certainty beyond ours, that things promise well for a soul…. Is it not a nervous and pusillanimous Christianity, devoid of self-respect? How can we hope to regain the influence the pulpit has lost until we come with the surest Word in all the world to the guesses of science, the maxims of ethic, and the instincts of art.[20]

    One uses the Bible to preach the gospel rather than using the gospel to preach the Bible. “We do not treat the Bible aright, we do not treat it with the respect it asks for itself, when we treat it as a theologian, but only when we treat it as … the preacher in the perpetual pulpit of the church,”[21] asserts Forsyth. Neither do preachers treat the Bible with the respect it deserves when they sentimentally pay homage only to its beauty and its precepts. Instead, Forsyth encourages preachers to concentrate on the content of the Biblical message.[22]

    In preaching long expository passages, Forsyth maintains, “one get(s) real preaching in the sense of preaching from the real situation of the Bible to the real situation of the time. It is thus you make history preach to history, the past to the present, and not merely a text to a soul.”[23]

    He recognizes that the vital question for preaching in his context is the question of authority. He asserted, in his day, that criticism no longer allowed the Bible to hold that place. “Yet,” he says, “the gospel of the future must come with the note of authority.”[24] The Gospel itself carries this needed authority. After denying that authority comes through creeds or theology, he states, “The preacher does not call one to believe statements, but the Gospel of an urgent God.”[25] Forsyth maintained that the “one great preacher in history is the church,… And the first business of the individual preacher is to enable the church to preach.”[26] Indeed, Forsyth provides a model of one who, by focusing upon the centrality of Christ and the cross preached to his times without preaching his times.

    Notes
    [1] While most scholars writing about Forsyth note the influence of F. D. Maurice, W. L. Bradley indicates that the influence of Maurice upon Forsyth is probably overestimated. See William L. Bradley, P. T. Forsyth: The Man and His Work (London: Independent Press, 1952).
    [2] Samuel J. Mikolaski, “The Theology of P. T. Forsyth,” The Evangelical Quarterly, 36 (1964), 27. The use of the term “liberal” in this article is not done pejoratively but as an attempt to define a historic theological position.
    [3] John H. Rodgers, The Theology of P. T. Forsyth (London: Independent Press, 1965), p. 77; see also Gwilym O. Griffith, The Theology of P. T. Forsyth (London: Lutterworth, 1948), pp. 36-60.
    [4] See William Lee Bradley, The Man and His Work (London: Independent Press, 1952), p. 82. Such a shift is evidenced by such titles as “The Cross as the Final Seat of Authority” and “The Cruciality of the Cross.”
    [5] John E. Steely, “Introduction,” in P. T. Forsyth, The Cruciality of the Cross (Wake Forest, North Carolina: Chanticleer Press, 1983), p. 5. Forsyth first published these lectures in 1909.
    [6] P. T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind (New York: Hodder and Stoughton, 1907), pp. 282, 283.
    [7] P. T. Forsyth, The Person and Place of Jesus Christ (New York: Eaton and Mains, 1909); The Work of Christ, (London: Independent Press), 1st edition 1910; The Cruciality of the Cross (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910); Christ on Parnassus (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1911); The Holy Father and the Living Christ (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1898).
    [8] See Bradley, The Man and His Work, p. 66.
    [9] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 5.
    [10] See P. T. Forsyth, The Church and the Sacraments (London: Independent Press, 1949).
    [11] The liberals based their belief on their perception that the Jesus painted in the Synoptic gospels did not give much explanation to the meaning of the cross. Forsyth argued that this was because the risen Christ explained it to his apostles after the fact.
    [12] Rodgers, The Theology of P. T. Forsyth, pp. 103-131.
    [13] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 37.
    [14] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 13.
    [15] Robert McAfee Brown, P. T. Forsyth: Prophet for Today (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1952), p. 71.
    [16] P. T. Forsyth, “The Soul of Christ and the Cross of Christ,” London Quarterly Review, 116 (1911), 195-196.
    [17] See William Ray Rosser, “The Cross as the Hermeneutical Norm for Scriptural Interpretation in the Theology of Peter Taylor Forsyth” (Ph.D. Dissertation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1990).
    [18] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 200.
    [19] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 178.
    [20] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 184.
    [21] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 15.
    [22] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 146.
    [23] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 166.
    [24] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 41.
    [25] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 44.
    [26] Forsyth, Positive Preaching, p. 79.

    ‘Barrenness and Blessing: Abraham, Sarah, and the Journey of Faith’: A Review

    Hemchand Gossai, Barrenness and Blessing: Abraham, Sarah, and the Journey of Faith (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2008). xiii + 122 pages. ISBN: 978 1 55635 292 8. Review copy courtesy of Wipf and Stock.

    In this book, Hemchand Gossai, the Director of Religious Studies at Georgia Southern University (USA), invites us to look carefully at the Abraham narratives and to see therein the interplay of human drama and divine involvement. As we do so, he suggests, we discern the strengths and frailties of human being: ‘the possibilities and shortcomings, the persistence of faith together with moments of challenging doubts’ (p. xi).

    The story, Israel’s story, our story, begins with barrenness for that is how and where God chooses to begin, and out of which blessing and fears, fulfilment and challenges, complexities and struggles are given … and hope. Gossai reminds us of God’s decision to begin – ‘unafraid’ – with Sarah’s barren womb. Barrenness, he writes ‘is established as a possible place for yet another starting point for newness. Barrenness also poses for the human being a challenge to believe beyond what is immediately apparent … Barrenness ultimately leads to resignation and to the belief that the present reality is the way things will always be, and there is no vision for the unfolding of a future beyond one’s capacity to see. Thus, hope dies in the face of barrenness. The challenge of barrenness then is not only to accept a particular reality of the present, but also to imagine that it is not the last word, that the final word is yet to be spoken and eventuated’ (p. 1).

    Gossai explores themes of barrenness in the Genesis narrative – in body and land – as a point of ending and beginning, of hope born out of hopelessness. From Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Hannah, we see that barrenness is the ‘norm for God’, standing in marked contrast to human ways of ‘launching newness’ (p. 6). From Genesis 11, 25, 27, 16 and 19 Gossai reflects on this divine comma across human experience which threatens to make casualties of patience and hope. His treatment of the account of Sarah and Hagar in Chapter Two is particularly powerful, bringing the narrative to life, in the harshness of the wilderness. He notes of Hagar: ‘Even the displaced will have a future, born out of suffering and exile’ (p. 26).

    In Chapter Three, Gossai deals seriously with the question of wrestling with God, whether for others (Genesis 18) or for oneself (Genesis 19). This wrestling match, if to be true, is not ‘fixed’ beforehand and so offers the real possibility that ‘in some measure, the human will defeat God’. As preposterous as this sounds, he suggests that ‘the alternative is equally problematic and turns any such encounter into a farce’ (p. 43). Reflecting on Abraham’s challenge with God in Genesis 18, Gossai writes:

    What we have as Genesis 18 comes to an end in a moment of disbelief on the part of Abraham. His fear of God’s anger as he expresses his view in 18:32 is more a recognition that he cannot finally fathom God’s capacity for forgiveness and grace. Whereas he began by challenging God on the basis of God’s justice and righteousness, he ends by essentially acknowledging his human limitations, and in an extraordinary moment, it is Abraham who ceases to press God’s mercy, and the dialog of questions and answers comes to an end. Throughout this “wrestling” for the sake of the unrighteous, God’s repeated pronouncement of God’s latitude of grace and forgiveness is made without any asterisks or footnotes. There is no hedging on the part of God. What is extraordinary here is that Abraham dares to challenge God. We have to be careful here not to immediately conclude that whatever is asked of God will be granted. That kind of simplistic and, I believe, unhelpful theology is not what is at work here.

    As I read and reread this text, I return to the issue of “what if.” What if Abraham had really “pushed his luck”: and had asked God if God would save the city for the sake of one righteous person? What if! This it seems to me is the question that naturally leads one to see the self-evident answer generated through Jesus Christ as the one righteous one who is enough to save all humanity. While from a literary perspective, the Abraham episode should not to be read and understood principally through these christological lenses, in my posing the question about the limits of God’s mercy and forgiveness in Jesus Christ, the resounding answer is that it is infinite-costly and infinite. Abraham, like us, finds it perhaps impossible to conceive of divine love, mercy, and forgiveness, which stretches beyond human capacity to imagine (pp. 50-1).

    Moving in-between narratives along thematic lines, and drawing not a little on Brueggemann’s work, Gossai proceeds to consider Genesis 32 (‘Refusing to Let God of God’) the story of Israel coming into being through pain and struggle, ‘and Israel will limp for the rest of his life with a blessing’ (p. 61). Genesis 12:1-4, Genesis 20, Genesis 21, Genesis 32-33, Genesis 25:19-34, Genesis 26, and Genesis 27 are all carefully attended to.

    The final chapter is a treatment of Genesis 22, a chapter which to sight threatens to undermine all the promises of God for which one would think necessitates Isaac being kept alive at all costs. It is that chapter – most powerfully exegeted by Søren Kierkegaard – which bears witness to an open-eyed Abraham who sees that God is contradicting himself. Yet he trusts the God of promise against the requirement of sacrifice even while he obeys the dreadful command. Kierkegaard would pen in his journal ‘He who has explained this riddle has explained my life. Yet who was there among my contemporaries that understood this?’ But I must resist turning to Kierkegaard here. Allow me a final citation from Gossai, on Genesis 22:

    As we arrive at this juncture in the narrative, particularly as this story follows the drama of Genesis 21 and the long-awaited birth of Isaac, any careful reader would immediately be shocked by the unexpected circumstances and developments. Few of us are able to read this story and not wonder silently or aloud if this journey to the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham (Gen 12:1-4), after all this time and after all the angst, has been for naught. Will not the prospects of Isaac’s death bring Abraham and Sarah again into a state of barrenness, similar to their state in Genesis 12, except in this instance with substantially more pain, even as their future disappears? Far too much is riding on this moment for it to be recast using empty religious rhetoric and vocabulary.

    As if a textual reminder that we cannot possibly know the future, this test of Abraham comes unannounced. The reality is that we could not have seen this event coming. There is no indication in the body of the story up to this point that hints that such a test could be possible, yet in what is already an extraordinary story comes this truly extraordinary development. We could not have been less prepared. But herein lies a fundamental direction in this broader Abraham narrative. It is finally about hope; hope in the face of such utter hopelessness and barrenness that nothing but unimaginable faith in a future over which there is no human control will maintain hope. So, then, why should we be surprised? Yet, we are, and we should be surprised. None of this is clear.

    In truth I am utterly shocked by Genesis 22 – repeatedly shocked. I have finally persuaded myself that this story should be perpetually shocking. Given all that has transpired in the journey of Abraham and Sarah thus far, how could God make such a demand! But God does, and once again we are reminded that the future is not controlled by humans. If, in reading the Abraham narrative, we have wondered about the necessity of faith for the journey right from the beginning … then any such wondering is dispelled with Genesis 22. This is a story that affirms or ends the journey. There is no “in-between” or “sort-of” response to this text. (pp. 106-7)

    Not all will rest comfortable with some of Gossai’s theological commitments, and while at times he invites an unnecessary (even forced) psychologising of the text, and is sometimes too anxious to find contemporary correspondences (see, for example, p. 61), his attempts to assist these ancient texts to speak again – and speak again to the church – is commendable and he offers much that is of considerable help for the preacher. I look forward to preaching through Genesis.

    Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor

    David Mathis has shared two moving quotations from Don Carson’s forthcoming book about his dad: Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson. Mathis notes that ‘things weren’t easy for Tom Carson (1911-1992). Quebec was spiritually frigid in the 60s and 70s when he planted a church and preached week in and week out to twenty people. His journals are very honest. He wrestled with discouragement and seeming fruitlessness. But he persevered, staying the gospel course’.

    I recall Don Carson bearing witness a number of times to the huge impact that his parents – particularly his praying mother – had on his own faith. He also testified to the faithfulness of his father, who pastored at a time when there were very few evangelical pastors in French-speaking Canada, and not a few of them, if I recall rightly, were imprisoned for their fidelity to the gospel.

    Don Carson:

    Some pastors, mightily endowed by God, are a remarkable gift to the church. They love their people, they handle Scripture well, they see many conversions, their ministries span generations, they understand their culture yet refuse to be domesticated by it, they are theologically robust and personally disciplined. … Most of us, however, serve in more modest patches. Most pastors will not regularly preach to thousands, let alone tens of thousands. They will not write influential books, they will not supervise large staffs, and they will never see more than modest growth. They will plug away at their care for the aged, at their visitation, at their counseling, at their Bible studies and preaching. Some will work with so little support that they will prepare their own bulletins. They cannot possibly discern whether the constraints of their own sphere of service owe more to the specific challenges of the local situation or to their own shortcomings. Once in a while they will cast a wistful eye on “successful” ministries. Many of them will attend the conferences sponsored by the revered masters, and come away with a slightly discordant combination of, on the one hand, gratitude and encouragement, and, on the other, jealousy, feelings of inadequacy, and guilt.

    Most of us—let us be frank—are ordinary pastors.

    Dad was one of them. This little book is a modest attempt to let the voice and ministry of one ordinary pastor be heard, for such servants have much to teach us.

    * * *

    Tom Carson never rose very far in denominational structures, but hundreds of people … testify how much he loved them. He never wrote a book, but he loved the Book. He was never wealthy or powerful, but he kept growing as a Christian: yesterday’s grace was never enough. He was not a far-sighted visionary, but he looked forward to eternity. He was not a gifted administrator, but there is no text that says “By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you are good administrators.” His journals have many, many entries bathed in tears of contrition, but his children and grandchildren remember his laughter. Only rarely did he break through his pattern of reserve and speak deeply and intimately with his children, but he modeled Christian virtues to them. He much preferred to avoid controversy than to stir things up, but his own commitments to historic confessionalism were unyielding, and in ethics he was a man of principle. His own ecclesiastical circles were rather small and narrow, but his reading was correspondingly large and expansive. He was not very good at putting people down, except on his prayer lists.

    When he died, there were no crowds outside the hospital, no editorial comments in the papers, no announcements on the television, no mention in Parliament, no attention paid by the nation. In his hospital room there was no one by his bedside. There was only the quiet hiss of oxygen, vainly venting because he had stopped breathing and would never need it again.

    But on the other side, all the trumpets sounded. Dad won entrance to the only throne-room that matters, not because he was a good man or a great man—he was, after all, a most ordinary pastor—but because he was a forgiven man. And he heard the voice of him whom he longed to hear saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord.”

    Luther on our highest comfort

    ‘This is our highest comfort, to clothe and wrap Christ this way in my sins, your sins, and the sins of the entire world, and in this way to behold Him bearing all our sins’. Luther attacked those ‘papists’ who seek justification and the removal of sins through acts of love: ‘This is clearly to unwrap Christ and to unclothe Him from our sins, to make Him innocent, to burden and overwhelm ourselves with our own sins, and to behold them, not in Christ but in ourselves. This is to abolish Christ and make Him useless. For if it is true that we abolish sins by the works of the Law and by love, then Christ does not take them away, but we do. But if He is truly the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, who became a curse for us, and who was wrapped in our sins, it necessarily follows that we cannot be justified and take away sins through love. For God has laid our sins, not upon us but upon Christ, His Son. If they are taken away by Him, then they cannot be taken away by us’. Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 26: Lectures on Galatians, 1535, Chapters 1-4 (ed. J. J. Pelikan, et al.; trans. J. J. Pelikan; vol. 26; Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 278.

    On American Parenting

    There’s a wee passage in Carl Zuckmayer’s correspondence with Karl Barth in which Zuckmayer offers the following comment on American parenting:

    If one has lived in America and seen in countless cases what injustice is done to children, one has enough of it. One sees too much that someone, hidden behind misunderstood psychoanalytical maxims, allows them to become little tyrants and ill-humored despots, despots whom adults crawl in front of for pure convenience, only to get peace; and one sees how this takes effect in the unfortunate adolescents when they, brought up without authority, are confronted with the difficulties of life. – A Late Friendship: The Letters of Karl Barth and Carl Zuckmayer (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 47.

    HT: Travis

    The Catholic Fantastic of Chesterton and Tolkien

    Ralph Wood has a good article on Chesterton and Tolkien in today’s First Things in which he praises Alison Milbank’s Chesterton and Tolkien As Theologians: The Fantasy of the Real. Here’s a taste:

    Unlike Coleridge and the Romantics, however, Tolkien and Chesterton never grant godlike status to artists and thinkers as having the power to invent their own self-enclosed universe. On the contrary, they share a deep Thomistic regard for the primacy of being: for things as they are perceived by the senses. Like Kant, they confess the difficulty of moving from the phenomenal to the noumenal realm of things-in-themselves. Yet, unlike him, they do not despair over the seemingly impassable gap between the inner and the outer, the mental and the natural; instead, they reveal that the world is not dreadfully dead (as we have believed since Descartes and Newton) but utterly alive and awaiting our free transformation of it. The universe that has been made dissonant also requires reenchantment, therefore, in order for us to participate in an otherness that is not finally cacophony but symphony, a complex interlocking of likenesses and differences that form an immensely complex but finally redemptive Whole. The doubleness of all things is cause for rejoicing, it follows, rather than lamentation.

    As readers we are able to experience Treebeard at two levels: On the one hand, he is patently an aesthetic invention, a fictional creature. Both Chesterton and Tolkien constantly draw attention to the created character of their work, reminding us that it belongs to secondary and not primarily reality: it is a constructed thing to be enjoyed as such. Yet having encountered this fantastic tree with human features, readers can no longer look upon real trees as mere objects meant only for our manipulation. On the contrary, we can now envision all trees as analogical actualities, as transcendent symbols that participate in the reality that they signify, as having likenesses to us despite their differences from us, and thus as linking natural things with both human and divine things—and perhaps also with things demonic. It is not a long leap, for instance, from Treebeard to the trees in the Garden of Eden.

    Chesterton and Tolkien have not autonomously invented their own imaginative worlds so much as they have reordered the existing world in accordance with their fundamentally Aristotelian/Thomistic perception of it. Their common conviction is that everything has its own entelechy, its own end within itself that pushes it toward completion and fulfillment within a larger, indeed a final telos.

    You can read the full article here.

    Barth on being an American theologian

    Having recently watched Lions for Lambs, I was again reminded of Barth’s words spoken in Chicago on 26 April 1962 (audio here):

    If I myself were an American citizen and a Christian and a theologian, then I would try to elaborate a theology of freedom – a theology of freedom from, let us say, from any inferiority complex over against good old Europe from whence you all came, or your fathers. You do not need to have such an inferiority complex. That is what I have learned these weeks. You may also have freedom from a superiority complex, let us say, over against Asia and Africa. That’s a complex without reason. Then I may add – [your theology should also be marked by] freedom from fear of communism, Russia, inevitable nuclear warfare and generally speaking, from all the afore-mentioned principalities and powers. Freedom for which you would stand would be the freedom for – I like to say a single word – humanity. Being an American theologian, I would then look at the Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor. I have not seen that lady, except in pictures. Next week I shall see her in person. That lady needs certainly a little or, perhaps, a good bit of demythologization. Nevertheless, maybe she may also be seen and interpreted and understood as a symbol of a true theology, not of liberty, but of freedom. Well, it would be necessarily, a theology of freedom. Of that freedom to which the Son frees us [cf. Jn 8.36], and which as His gift, is the one real human freedom. My last question for this evening is this: Will such a specific American theology one day arise? I hope so.’

    Colin Gunton’s ‘The Barth Lectures’: A Review

    Colin E. Gunton, The Barth Lectures (transcribed and edited by Paul H. Brazier; T&T Clark, London/New York, 2007). xxiv + 285 pages. ISBN: 9780567031402.

    While he fruitfully enjoyed a life-long engagement with and formation by Karl Barth’s work, produced numerous articles on various aspects of such, and lectured on Barth most years he taught at King’s College London, Colin Gunton never fulfilled his ambition to pen a monograph devoted solely to this his favourite theologian. Had he done so, these lectures (recorded and transcribed almost verbatim by Paul Brazier, complete with charts, diagrams, live-questions and Gunton’s responses) would have served as the basis.

    Chapters 1-3 attend to the intellectual, historical and theological background to Barth’s thinking. Beginning with a focus on Enlightenment philosophy as it finds voice in Kant, Schleiermacher and Hegel – all three of whom ‘identified Christianity too closely with modern culture’ (p. 17) – Gunton then turns to Barth’s early theological formation in the nineteenth-century liberalism of Harnack and Herrmann, as well as to some other voices and ideas that impinged on Barth’s theological development – Johann Christoph Blumhardt (who also influenced Moltmann), Albert Schweitzer and Franz Overbeck through whom eschatology was re-confirmed on the theological radar. Barth’s engagement with existentialism (Kierkegaardian and other) and theologies of ‘religion’, ‘crisis’ and ‘dialectics’ are introduced in the second and third lectures, and re-appear subsequently throughout. Certainly, for the Swiss theologian, ‘no road to the eternal world has ever existed except the road of negation’ (p. 33). Thus when Gunton later comes to unpack something of the charge concerning Barth’s ‘irrationality’ through the continuing influence of Der Römerbrief, empiricism, and Barth’s ‘assertive style’, the United Reformed Church minister notes:

    The influence of empiricism, especially on the minds of English and American theologians, cannot be dismissed. The English, or to be more pertinent, the Anglican theological mind is shaped by a philosophical tradition that does not find Barth’s approach to theology easy to understand let alone agree with … Part of our intellectual tradition makes it hard for us to understand – particularly an Anglican tradition. Anglicans on the whole like things to be nice and middle way, the via media. And there is not much of the middle way in Karl Barth! … Barth’s assertive style does make it difficult for mild-mannered establishment Anglicans to cope with. (p. 66)

    Whether critiquing Augustine, Calvin, Kant, the ‘Absolutely Pagan’ Hegel (p. 17), or the ‘great opponent’ Schleiermacher (p. 15), Gunton repeatedly identifies that the crucial question for the author of the groundbreaking Der Römerbrief remains ‘how much of your intellectual method hangs on something foreign to Christianity?’ (p. 42; cf. pp. 52-3). To this end, Gunton also devotes an entire lecture (pp. 53-63) to Barth’s 1931 work on Anselm, Fides quaerens intellectum, and to the Archbishop’s understanding of the relationship between ‘proof’, ‘reason’ and ‘faith’. He later writes: ‘Barth is a post-Reformation thinker with the rallying cry, by scripture alone and by faith alone! Barth found in the Reformation tradition a conception of theology based on a view of God that is linked with human salvation. The problem for Barth with the Scholastic tradition is that they begin with a rational view of God – a rational idea of God abstracted from human salvation. Barth begins with scripture because the God of scripture is about salvation not philosophical argument’ (p. 69). And on a comparison with Schleiermacher: ‘the problem with beginning with religion is that it is not theological, it can be, it can lead into theology, but in essence it is not: religion is an experiential concept, not a theological concept. Barth wants a theology that is theological right from the very outset. Barth considers that Roman Catholics and Protestants such as Schleiermacher are wrong in thinking that there can be a non-theological basis for theology. Barth is a theologian you see, to the fingernails’ (p. 69).

    From Chapter Four onwards, Gunton turns to Barth’s Church Dogmatics, acutely aware that ‘there is nothing as boring as résumés of Barth’s Dogmatics‘ and that ‘the way to get into Barth is to select and to read – read him, there is no substitute!’ (p. 71). Over the next 190 pages, this is precisely what Gunton masterfully helps us do; whether on Barth’s theological prolegomena, his witness to the three-fold Word, trinity, the doctrine of God proper, election, christology, soteriology, ethics and creation, we are all along driven by the only thing of theological interest for Barth, the question ‘Who is the God who makes himself known in Scripture?’ (p. 77). ‘When Barth is at his best’, Gunton writes, ‘he looks at the biblical evidence in detail; when he is weak he tends to evade it’ (p. 119)

    A few tastes from ‘5. Barth on the Trinity and the Personal God’:

    Barth is anti-foundationalist … God’s revelation is self-grounded; it does not have to appeal to anything else beyond itself. Because it is revelation through itself, not in relation to something else, because it is self-contained, lordship means freedom. This is characteristically Barthian: a characteristically Barthian phrase. Lordship means freedom – freedom for God, absolutely central for Barth’s theology. (p. 78)

    The basis of all theology lies in the fact that revelation does happen … This revelation is Christological: Jesus Christ is God’s self-unveiling. The Father cannot be unveiled, but the Father reveals through the Son. This is imparted through the Holy Spirit. A little artificial I actually think, but you can see what he is actually trying to do: he is trying to show that inherent in the structure of God’s presence in Jesus Christ is a Trinitarian view of God … The point here is that in Jesus Christ we see the limits, the possibilities of the knowability of God … So Barth in a way is still retaining this dialectical structure: veiling-unveiling, knowability -unknowability, revelation-hiddenness … In the end you have only got paradox … God preserves his privacy. (pp. 79-80)

    The logic is that if God is like this in time then because he doesn’t con us, so to speak, he doesn’t pull the wool over our eyes, because he is a revealing God, then that is what God is. So don’t think that the God we meet in Jesus is one God and that the God of eternity is entirely different from Jesus. The God you meet in Jesus is no different from the God you might meet if you were able to have a direct view of eternity. (p. 83)

    Barth is against all mathematics in theology – he is against theories and ideas propounded down the centuries by theologians whereby examples are given of the Trinity, where three things make one; Augustine was often doing this, it is pure analogy or an attempt at analogy, which generally fails to offer any theological elucidation … I don’t like Augustine. I think he is the fountainhead of our troubles. (pp. 84, 96)

    [Barth] is often accused of modalism, and I think he is near it … I think he is on a bit of a knife-edge myself, but then all theology is on a knife-edge, it is such a difficult discipline. [Barth] wants to do what the Cappadocians did, and Barth thinks he has done it better with this term – ‘modes of being’. Well, I don’t agree with him, but that is the way he puts it. (pp. 88-9)

    Theology is our interpretation of God’s self-interpretation. God interprets himself to us, that is what revelation is. Our response is to interpret this faithfully, or as Jüngel would put it, responsibly … We move from faith to understanding. We move from a grateful acceptance of revelation to an attempt to understand as best we may what that revelation means for God and ourselves. And the understanding consists in the fact that we can talk of God as Father, Son and Spirit. It is so obvious that we should, isn’t it! We might talk of God as a tyrannical monad, but the fact that we can talk of God as Father, Son and Spirit is, so to speak, a demonstration after the event that we are making sense, that God is making sense, our theology makes sense. (p. 91)

    And from ‘8. Ethics: Church Dogmatics Chapter VIII:

    I do think that there is a problem of abstractness because there isn’t really in Barth, I think (and I say this tentatively), I think that there isn’t really in Barth an account of how this relationship between God and the moral agent takes shape. There is not much of a principle of formation. How are people formed so as to take one ethical direction rather than another? Barth is relatively weak in ecclesiology; that is, some account of how ethics are shaped by the community of belief. He is so anxious not to tie God down; that is always his anxiety, not to tie God down. (p. 133)

    Throughout, Gunton is rousing his 30-40 mostly MA and PhD students (although the lectures were intended for undergraduates and so leave considerable ground un-traversed and engage minimally with secondary literature) to ‘read as much of the man himself’ not least because ‘the people that write about him are much more boring than he is’ (p. 9; cf. p. 39). In a sense, this is one book to ‘listen to’ more than to ‘read’. At times, it’s a bit like the difference between a live album and a studio version. Not all the notes are spot on, but the energy – filled with a depth of theological and pastoral insight that betray years of wrestling with the things that matter – is all there.

    Such wrestling means that whether expounding a key motif in Barth’s theology or fielding questions, Gunton reveals not only a deep indebtedness to Barth’s work, but also points of divergence. He is upfront in the first lecture: ‘Not everyone buys into Barth … I don’t, all the way along the line, as I get older I get more and more dissatisfied with the details of his working out of the faith … over the years I think I have developed a reasonable view of this great man who is thoroughly exciting and particularly, I can guarantee, if you do this course, that you will be a better theologian by the third year, whether or not you agree with him – he is a great man to learn to think theologically with’ (p. 10; see the prefaces to his Theology Through the Theologians and to the second edition of The Promise of Trinitarian Theology). Clearly, Gunton is no clone of Barth. Though mostly unnamed, he draws upon Coleridge, Owen, Zizioulas and Polanyi as allies in order to attain a measure of distance from Barth’s theology (and that of Barth’s student Moltmann), notably on creation, trinitarian personhood (Gunton prefers the Cappadocians), natural revelation, Jesus’ humanity, Christ’s priesthood, the Word’s action as mediator of creation, ecclesiology, and an over-realised eschatology, among other things (see pp. 52, 74, 82, 88-90, 96, 133, 142, 148, 170-1, 186, 200, 212, 227, 236, 250, 253-4, passim). Not alone here, Gunton reserves his strongest criticisms for what he contends is Barth’s weak pneumatology (for which he blames Augustine and the filioque): there is ‘not enough of the Spirit accompanying and empowering Jesus at different stages of his ministry’ (p. 200). Again: ‘the second person of the Trinity is made to do a bit more than he does in Scripture’ (p. 212). Gunton is always cautious and respectful however: Barth ‘never really forgets anything, he is too good a theologian for that. And when you are criticizing Barth it is only a question of where he puts a weight; he never forgets anything, he is too good a man for that’ (p. 171). Even on the Spirit, Gunton suggests that he can only be critical here because of what he has learnt from Barth already: ‘That’s the great thing about Barth: he enables you to do other things that aren’t just Barth but yet are empowered by him. Yes, that’s his greatness’ (p. 200).

    While the reformed theologian is ‘too-multi-layered a thinker to have one leading idea’ if there is one, Gunton suggests it is that of covenant: ‘that from eternity God covenants to be the God who elects human beings into relation with himself’ (p. 149), that from eternity the triune God is oriented towards us. Gunton’s chapter on Barth’s revision of God’s election in CD II/2 is an astounding example of his adroitness and élan as a theological educator. Not many teachers could summarise so sufficiently and with such economy (just 12 pages!) what for Barth is the root of all things, ‘creation, atonement, all’ (p. 115), that is, election. Gunton concludes by (over?)-suggesting that Barth’s effort was ‘a huge improvement in the crude determinism of the Augustinian tradition, which did not represent a gracious God. The Augustinian doctrine replaces grace with gratuity: God gratuitously chooses group A and not group B – this is not the God who seeks out the lost [even Judas] and does not reject them’ (p. 121).

    This volume is significantly more than merely a course on the theology of the twentieth century’s superlative theologian. It is also a reminder that to read Barth attentively is to be introduced to a broader dogmatic and philosophical tradition. Moreover, it is to be led to do so by one of Britain’s ablest pedagogues. A foreword by Christoph Schwöbel and a warm introduction by Steve Holmes prepare us for one of the freshest introductions to Barth available. Again, we are placed in Professor Gunton’s debt.

    Advent Reflection 12: Not an ethereal figure

    ‘So deeply is this need [for love] rooted in human nature, and so essentially does it belong to being human, that even he who was one with the Father and in the communion of love with the Father and the Spirit, he who loved the whole human race, our Lord Jesus Christ, even he humanly felt this need to love and be loved by an individual human being. He is indeed the God-man and thus eternally different from every human being, but still he was also a true human being, tested in everything human. On the other hand, the fact that he experienced this is the very expression of its belonging essentially to a human being. He was an actual human being and therefore can participate in everything human. He was not an ethereal figure that beckoned in the clouds without understanding or wanting to understand what humanly befalls a human being. Ah, no, he could have compassion on the crowd that lacked food, and purely humanly, he who himself had hungered in the desert. In the same way he could also sympathize with people in this need to love and to be loved, sympathize purely humanly’. – Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (ed. Howard Vincent Hong and Edna Hatlestad Hong; trans. Howard Vincent Hong and Edna Hatlestad Hong; vol. 16; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 155.

    Advent Reflections for 2007